Young Republican

Young Republican
by Randall Mann

September, 1984.
The heat was like a ray-gun.
The Communists had much to fear:
His name was Ronald Reagan—

and so was mine in middle school,
throughout the mock debate.
The recreation hall was full
of democratic hate.

I ended all my thoughts with well,
declared my love for Nancy.
My stifling suit was poly-wool.
I sounded like a pansy.

But teachers didn’t seem to care
that Ronald Reagan looked
a little fey, and had some flair.
I wanted to be liked,

the boy who mowed the neighbors’ yards,
the new kid in Ocala—
while Mondale read his index cards,
I sipped a Coca Cola

that I had spiked with Mother’s gin,
and frowned, and shook my head.
Oh Walter, there you go again,
I smiled and vainly said.

I reenacted getting shot.
I threw benign grenades.
I covered up what I forgot.
I never mentioned AIDS.

About the Poem

“Young Republican” is sharp, funny, and devastating all at once—a poem that understands how performance can become survival. Set in September 1984, the poem unfolds during a middle-school mock debate at the height of the Reagan era. The speaker shares a name with Ronald Regan, a coincidence that becomes both costume and shield.

What Mann captures so precisely is the choreography of belonging: the poly-wool suit, the rote praise of Nancy Reagan, the rehearsed disdain for Walter Mondale, the Coke spiked with gin (childhood bravado masquerading as adulthood). This is a boy learning how to read the room—and how to disappear inside it.

The poem’s humor (“I sounded like a pansy”) is double-edged. On the surface, it’s self-deprecating; beneath it, the line exposes how queerness is policed through voice, gesture, and tone. Teachers “didn’t seem to care” that Reagan “looked / a little fey,” while the boy himself desperately wants to be liked. The implication is clear: effeminacy can be tolerated when it’s power-adjacent, abstracted, or safely ironic—but not when it belongs to a vulnerable kid trying to pass.

And then there’s the ending. The final line—“I never mentioned AIDS.”—lands like a trapdoor. Everything before it has been satire and social observation; suddenly the stakes snap into focus. The poem becomes unmistakably LGBTQ+. In 1984, AIDS was not merely absent from middle-school debate—it was actively erased, even as it ravaged queer communities. Silence here is not ignorance; it’s learned omission. The speaker understands, even then, what must not be said if he wants to remain acceptable.

This is why the poem resonates so deeply as a queer text. It isn’t about desire in any overt sense. It’s about concealment, mimicry, and the emotional cost of aligning oneself with systems that promise safety while denying truth. The boy’s performance of conservatism isn’t ideological conviction—it’s camouflage.

“Young Republican” asks uncomfortable questions:

• What did we have to hide to be allowed in the room?
  
• What did we rehearse instead of telling the truth?
  
• And what names—personal or political—did we borrow in order to survive?
  

About the Poet

Randall Mann is an American poet known for his formally inventive, emotionally incisive work that often explores queerness, masculinity, memory, and cultural performance. His poems frequently engage pop culture and politics, using wit and structure to probe deeply personal experiences. Mann’s work is especially attuned to the ways language, roles, and social expectations shape queer lives—often revealing how humor and restraint coexist with grief and loss.

“Young Republican” is a quintessential example of Mann’s voice: controlled, ironic, and quietly devastating, leaving the reader to sit with what’s been said—and what was never allowed to be spoken.